Huckabee Hints Hes Happy as Non-Candidate

“I don’t know. The honest answer is that I don’t think any of us knows exactly,” he said when asked what should be done in Afghanistan.

“You go to Afghanistan, you look around and ask, ‘Am I in a country or am I on the surface of the moon?’” he continued, adding that he visited the country in 2006. “You can’t grow anything but poppies. ... The government is so incredibly and hopelessly corrupt, and I don’t see that changing. I don’t know of anyone who says, ‘What a great bunch of people we have over there running things.’”

On the labor dispute in Wisconsin, Huckabee was asked whether he supported Gov. Scott Walker’s plan to eliminate collective bargaining for state employees. He wouldn’t say yes or no, offering this answer instead: “If not eliminated, it needs to be contained.”

At the same time, Huckabee offered encouraging words to the Republican governor: “Hang tough, stand tall, hold your ground.”

And when pressed to comment on the recommendations of the Obama administration’s deficit-reduction panel, which including deep spending cuts and tax increases, Huckabee said he favored focusing on spending cuts first. But he would not rule out support for eventual tax increases.

“There are three ways to answer a question,” he said when pressed on taxes. “Yes; no; not now. This is a not now.”

As one might expect, Huckabee was most confident when discussing social issues, although he criticized the media for labeling him as the evangelical candidate during the 2008 race. Still, he said the first chapter of his new book was devoted to social issues.